Amusement Device Including a Fabric Formed of a Plastic Strand

ABSTRACT

An amusement device is provided. One embodiment of the amusement device includes a plastic strand wound upon itself to form a fabric that encloses a void. The plastic strand is plastically welded to itself at a plurality of locations throughout the fabric. Such a construction may yield a fabric that is resiliently deformable, and may be formed into a variety of shapes, such as a ball. In some cases, a plurality of nested fabrics may be employed in the amusement device.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. §119 to U.S.provisional patent application Ser. No. 61/018,593, entitled AMUSEMENTDEVICE INCLUDING A FABRIC FORMED OF A PLASTIC STRAND, filed on Jan. 2,2008, the entire disclosure of which is herein incorporated byreference.

BACKGROUND

Balls are one of the oldest forms of toys and sports equipment. Manypopular games today still involve rolling, passing, kicking, tossing,catching, bouncing, or hitting balls. One problem with conventionalballs is that they are often boring or unexciting, for example, they maylack sufficiently interesting color, texture or design to excite everdemanding consumers. Another problem is that conventional balls often donot offer a surface configuration that promotes quick and sure grippingand conventional balls that are bouncy may be relatively rigid andnonpliable, making them difficult or even uncomfortable to catch orhold, particularly for children. Further, many bouncy balls have to beperiodically inflated, for example by blowing or pumping up the ballwith a pump, which can be burdensome and can result in a hard outersurface.

SUMMARY

An amusement device is provided. One embodiment of the amusement deviceincludes a plastic strand wound upon itself to form a fabric thatencloses a void. The plastic strand is plastically welded to itself at aplurality of locations throughout the fabric. Such a construction mayyield a fabric that is resiliently deformable, and may be formed into avariety of shapes, such as a ball. In some cases, a plurality of nestedfabrics may be employed in the amusement device.

This Summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts in asimplified form that are further described below in the DetailedDescription. This Summary is not intended to identify key features oressential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended tobe used to limit the scope of the claimed subject matter. Furthermore,the claimed subject matter is not limited to implementations that solveany or all disadvantages noted in any part of this disclosure.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a first embodiment of an amusementdevice formed in the shape of a sphere, and including a first fabricthat is nested within and enclosed by a second fabric, each fabric beingformed of a plastic strand.

FIG. 2 is a detail view of a section of the fabric of the amusementdevice of FIG. 1.

FIG. 3 is a schematic cross sectional view illustrating of the amusementdevice of FIG. 1, illustrating the nested first fabric and secondfabric.

FIG. 4 is a schematic view of a second embodiment of an amusement deviceformed in the shape of a football.

FIG. 5 is a perspective view of the amusement device of FIG. 1, showntemporarily crushed by the hand of a user.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

FIG. 1 illustrates an embodiment of an amusement device 100. Theamusement device may include at least a first plastic strand 102 woundor laid upon itself to form a first fabric 104 enclosing a void 105,shown in FIG. 3. The plastic strand 102 is plastically welded to itselfat a plurality of asymmetric weld locations 106 throughout the fabric104, as shown in FIG. 2. The plastic strand 102 forms multiple loopsaround the void 105, intersecting itself at varying angles on the fabric104 to form plastic welds at the weld locations.

As shown in detail in FIG. 2, the strand may substantially maintain itscross sectional shape throughout the location of each weld, therebymaintaining its integrity as a strand. This cross sectional shape may besubstantially round or oval, for example. The resulting fabric 104formed by strand 102 provides structural rigidity to hold its shapeduring play, while being resiliently deformable to provide springbackduring bouncing, kicking, batting, crushing, etc.

The strand 102 may be looped and joined via the plastic welds at theweld locations 106 to define a plurality of gaps 108 in the fabric 104,which have substantially straight sides, as viewed in plan view, i.e.from above. The gaps 108 in the fabric 104 enable a user to see throughthe amusement device, and reduce wind resistance on the device whenthrown. The gaps 108 also enable the amusement device 100 to sink duringwater play, unlike inflatable toys, which can be advantageous. The gaps108 further provide texture for the small hands of a child to grasp atduring play. The strand 102 and gap 108 construction can result in apleasing and unique look and feel.

The amusement device 100 may further include a second plastic strand 112wound upon itself to form a second fabric 114 enclosing the void 105. Asillustrated in FIG. 3, the second fabric 114 may be nested within thefirst fabric 104. In the illustrated embodiment, the second fabric 114is slightly smaller in diameter than the first fabric 104. To providestructural support, the first fabric 104 and second fabric 114 may beplastically welded to each other at locations intermediate the twofabrics. Alternatively, the second fabric 114 may be significantlysmaller than the first fabric 104, and/or the fabrics may not beinterconnected.

For visual contrast, the first fabric 104 and second fabric 114 may bedifferent colors. A wide variety of color combinations may be used. Forexample, black and white, blue and green, red and orange, purple andred, etc. Further, the first plastic strand 102 and second plasticstrand 112 may have a different cross sectional shape and/or a differentdiameter, to further provide visual contrast and/or variations instructural properties.

Each of the fabrics may form a closed surface, and may substantiallycover the area of a three dimensional surface of revolution such as asphere, as illustrated in FIG. 1. Thus, the fabric may be formed in theshape of a ball, such as the spherical ball depicted in FIG. 1 or theoblong shaped football 100A depicted in FIG. 4. Alternatively, the ballmay be formed in the shape of a basketball, soccer ball, tennis ball,baseball, etc. The amusement device 100 may be formed in a variety ofother shapes, such as a dog chew toy in the shape of a bone, an ornamentor accessory in the shape of a snowman, etc., in addition to theaforementioned ball shapes.

In some embodiments, the ball may include surface ornamentation formedfrom another plastic strand 118 adorned on the ball. For example, thefootball 100A depicted in FIG. 4 includes such surface ornamentation 120to form stripes and stitching on the ball.

In one specific example, the amusement device 100 of FIG. 1 may beformed in the shape of a spherical ball that is about four inches indiameter, and can be deformed with under three pounds of force. Such aconstruction enables the ball to spring back when kicked, bounced andcrushed under the force of a user's hand, for example, as shown in FIG.5. To achieve such deformable resiliency, the plastic strand 102 andplastic strand 112 may have a diameter of between about 1 and 4millimeters.

In some embodiments, the plastic strand 102 and the plastic strand 112may be made of soft or pliable materials, for example the plasticstrands may have a durometer hardness between 70 A and 90 A. In oneparticular example, the plastic strands may have a durometer hardness ofabout 85 A.

As discussed above, the fabric 104 and fabric 114 formed from theplastic strand 102 and plastic strand 112 may be pliable, for exampleresiliently deformable by the hand of a user. Thus, the amusement device100 may be deformed by being crushed and then may return substantiallyor even completely to its original shape.

Having the amusement device being constructed of at least one plasticstrand wound upon itself to form a fabric that encloses a void, atextured surface configuration is provided for easy and sure gripping,furthermore a bouncy, yet pliable body is provided for easy andcomfortable catching and/or holding. In addition, such an amusementdevice may have the advantage of being less expensive to make to make,for example when compared to a ball having a mesh surface made of loopstructures.

FIG. 4 is a schematic view of another embodiment of an amusement device100A, in the form of a football. In this embodiment, the amusementdevice 100A includes a first plastic strand 102 wound upon itself toform a first fabric 104 in the shape of the football. The first fabric104 is shown to enclose the void 105. The present embodiment amusementdevice 100 is shown to also include additional plastic strands 118 woundupon themselves to form surface ornamentations 120, including two ringshaped surface ornamentations placed at the two ends of the footballsurface and a plate shaped ornament placed at the center of the footballsurface, to appear as finger stitching on the football.

FIG. 5 illustrates amusement device 100 temporarily crushed or deformedby the hand of the user. Since the amusement device 100 may beresiliently deformable, the amusement device may return substantially orcompletely to its original shape after being crushed in this manner.

In some embodiments, the amusement device 100 may include accessoriesattached to the amusement device 100, for example, by welding, sewing,and/or crimping some or all of the accessories to the amusement device100. The accessories may include for example objects of interest tochildren, such as rattles and body parts of animal, such as eye,nose/snout, ear, hand, arm, feet, leg, whisker, heart, and tail, etc.

It should be understood that the embodiments herein are illustrative andnot restrictive, since the scope of the invention is defined by theappended claims rather than by the description preceding them, and allchanges that fall within metes and bounds of the claims, or equivalenceof such metes and bounds thereof are therefore intended to be embracedby the claims.

1. An amusement device, comprising: at least one plastic strand woundupon itself to form a fabric enclosing a void; wherein the at least oneplastic strand is plastically welded to itself at a plurality oflocations throughout the fabric.
 2. The amusement device of claim 1,wherein the fabric forms a closed surface.
 3. The amusement device ofclaim 1, wherein the amusement device substantially covers the area of athree dimensional surface of revolution.
 4. The amusement device ofclaim 2, wherein the fabric is in the shape of a sphere.
 5. Theamusement device of claim 1, wherein the plastic strand is plasticallywelded to itself at a plurality of asymmetric locations on the fabric.6. The amusement device of claim 5, wherein the plastic strand formsmultiple loops intersecting at varying angles.
 7. The amusement deviceof claim 7, wherein the plastic strand defines a plurality of gaps inthe fabric.
 8. The amusement device of claim 7, wherein the gaps havesubstantially straight sides, as viewed in plan view.
 9. The amusementdevice of claim 1, wherein the plastic strand has a durometer hardnessbetween 70 A and 90 A.
 10. The amusement device of claim 1, wherein theplastic strand has a diameter of between about 1 and 4 millimeters. 11.The amusement device of claim 1, wherein the plastic strandsubstantially maintains its cross sectional shape throughout thelocation of each weld.
 12. The amusement device of claim 11, wherein thecross sectional shape is substantially round or oval.
 13. The amusementdevice of claim 1, wherein the fabric is resiliently deformable.
 14. Theamusement device of claim 1, wherein the fabric is a first fabric andthe plastic strand is a first plastic strand, the amusement devicefurther comprising: at least one second plastic strand wound upon itselfto form a second fabric enclosing a void; wherein second fabric isnested within the first fabric.
 15. The amusement device of claim 14,wherein the first fabric and second fabric are plastically welded toeach other.
 16. The amusement device of claim 14, wherein the firstplastic strand and second plastic strand have a different crosssectional shape, a different diameter, and/or a different color.
 17. Theamusement device of claim 1, wherein the fabric is formed in the shape aball.
 18. The amusement device of claim 17, wherein the amusement devicein the shape of the ball includes surface ornamentation formed from anadditional plastic strand adorned on the ball.
 19. An amusement device,comprising: at least one plastic strand wound upon itself to form afabric enclosing a void; wherein the plastic strand is plasticallywelded to itself at a plurality of asymmetric locations throughout thefabric; wherein the plastic strand forms multiple loops around the voidintersecting at varying angles to define a plurality of gaps in thefabric; wherein the plastic strand substantially maintains its crosssectional shape throughout the location of each weld; and wherein thefabric is resiliently deformable.
 20. An amusement device, comprising:at least one plastic strand laid upon itself to form a fabric; whereinthe plastic strand is plastically welded to itself at a plurality ofasymmetric locations and varying angles throughout the fabric; whereinthe plastic strand defines a plurality of gaps in the fabric; andwherein the plastic strand substantially maintains its cross sectionalshape throughout the location of each weld.